Scion gets the axe, existing models will be rebranded as Toyotas

Toyota surprised many on Wednesday with the revelation that it was canceling its Scion brand.

Jim Lentz, founding vice president of Scion and now CEO of Toyota Motor North America, said the move isn't a step backward for Scion but rather a leap forward for Toyota. The goal of Scion, he added, was to make parent company Toyota and its dealers stronger by learning how to better attract and engage younger customers.

According to Lentz, Scion accomplished what it set out to do. To date, Scion has sold more than a million vehicles, 70 percent of which were purchased by buyers new to Toyota. Half of those cars were sold to buyers under the age of 35.

Scion was first introduced to US buyers at the New York Auto Show in March 2002. The brand was available nationwide by 2004 and later expanded into Canada in 2010. Over the years, however, sales continued to slide which, despite what the Japanese automotive giant is saying today, ultimately led to it being discontinued.

Moving forward, Toyota will be absorbing the Scion brand. Starting in August, the model year 2017 Scion FR-S sports car, iA sedan and iM 5-door hatchback vehicles will be rebadged as Toyota vehicles. The recently introduced C-HR will also become part of the Toyota lineup while the tC sports coupe will end production in August, we're told.

I never liked Scion vehicles anyway. I know a lot of people did. This really isn't a big deal anyway since they are just rebranding them as Toyota vehicles. The TC was never a good vehicle to begin with. The FR-S is not bad for what it is. It's a little over priced though. Now if it were only available as the GT-86, that would be nice.

I never liked Scion vehicles anyway. I know a lot of people did. This really isn't a big deal anyway since they are just rebranding them as Toyota vehicles. The TC was never a good vehicle to begin with. The FR-S is not bad for what it is. It's a little over priced though. Now if it were only available as the GT-86, that would be nice.

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Actually, Scion isn't even a real brand, it's the real re-brand, not vice versa as your stating. All models other than the FR-S, well and the FR-S, are Toyotas everywhere else in the world. If you really want to call your FR-S a GT86 get the badges and slap em on, it's the same car...But really it's a Subaru. Price wise, it's appropriate given the only thing Toyate had it's hand in was the exterior design, the car is entirely made by Subaru in a Subaru plant, the only real part that's from a Toyota is the six speed manual gearbox, which was derived from the IS250.

I think the "high tech" was the impact on those rodents .... sigh, more high tech workers out of a job!

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Uh? What the hell are you on about now? The plants are going to continue to manufacture the cars, just instead of being branded as Scion, a fictional made up brand that was supposed to appeal to Americans, they will be badged as the cars they truly are, no one is loosing their jobs over this, except perhaps the marketing department behind Scion.

I owned a scion. And I actually liked its look unlike most of Toyotas. Hopefully they ll keep making cars that are not looking like Toyotas.

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Since they will be Toyotas no matter what they look like by definition they will look like Toyotas. As a side note, I have a 2015 FR-S. It's a fun little car. It's technically not a sports car though since it has a rear seat (albeit barely usable).

Since they will be Toyotas no matter what they look like by definition they will look like Toyotas. .

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Well, that standard is a bit too loose. If we were to use that yardstick, you could put a pig on roller blades, brand a Toyota emblem on the rump roast part, and you'd have yourself a "Toyota".

Going even further afield than yourself with my "side note", I saw a show on TV one time where a guy wrote a check out to a guy he was feuding with, on the side of a pig. The judge threw the case out of court telling the man, "you should have cashed the pig".